Leigh uses the knowledge he has gained through reading to make an alarm for his lunch box (an endeavor his mother comes to support, as well as his new friend Barry) and finally wins honorable mention in a story contest. The fact that Leigh chooses to do all of these things (with occasional prompting) makes the young reader more likely to feel enthusiastic about reading him or herself. Cleary's humorous examples at the beginning of the book of the resistance to reading and writing on the part of students being given 'assignments' to write book reports or write to their favorite authors shows that she knows that young readers need to discover reading for themselves, and adults cannot compel them to love reading by force. Question 4

Leigh's parents are lower-middle class and divorced. Leigh and his mother live in a mobile home, and Leigh's father is a truck driver. Leigh's mother is desperately trying to improve her family's lot through educating herself and getting a degree as a nurse and working for a local catering company. She also encourages her son to read and write. She does not get the family television repaired because it is 'rotting' her son's mind as well...

Henshaw's questions. Leigh's father is a decent man, but irresponsible and 'footloose' by nature: he has trouble taking care of Bandit the dog, let alone a boy. He tries to make amends by returning Bandit, but clearly his parenting style is not the type of support that Leigh requires to flourish. Leigh's far more emotionally mature mother said she married too young and regrets the fact that she never got a high-quality education. She clearly has higher aspirations for her son.
Question 5

Leigh learns to see his father with a more balanced perspective. Leigh learns he can love his father, even if he cannot always trust his father. At the end of the novel, he seems more adult in his worldview than his own father, as he allows his father to keep the dog his father lost. Although he will miss Bandit, he knows his father needs the dog more, and he appreciates the fact that his father did return the animal to him. At least, Bandit was found: to Leigh, shows that his father has become more considerate of others, although the man is not the stable, parental presence that Leigh truly needs, and has in his mother.